The Problem – 3 stars
Twilight Theatre Company, based in New York, has a mission to develop, workshop, and produce new work and to tell stories that deepen our awareness, encourage compassion, and ignite conversation.
This sparky production, featuring corporate wonks rushing around in a jargon cloud, is hardly a cosy Tusitalia (teller of tales, as Samoans dubbed Robert Louis Stevenson) enthralling an evening beach audience. But when it comes to uniqueness of live performance, this production delivers.
Slater, Manning and Wilson (yes I thought they were estate agents too) are men beyond middle age, greying suits in grey suits, smugly congratulating each other on yet another “deal” made: they've finally redeemed themselves. “We planned with future hindsight!!” crows a colleague amid a gusher of MBA-management-speak that anyone with a boss knows – and which means precisely nothing at all.
But in Kafka-esque style, the titular “Problem” emerges – unclassified, formless and malevolent.
A new strategy is planned (on folders? not tablets??) and roles assigned: “I'll be in charge of subtleties!” squawks one hapless exec as they make like decapitated chickens in the tiny space (full marks for aircon though – on one of the hottest days!)
The macabre comedy is scattered with gags: “if we knew who the great Elizabethan spies were... they wouldn't have been great!” and “feelings don't solve problems... they create them!” and my favourite: “But our culture is a foreign culture to people... from a foreign culture!”
The farce descends into absurdity as the paranoid three ride the lift up and down their high-rise offices, seeking saboteurs at the zoo (but zoo animals are failed animals!) and finally a plan is agreed; standing in an equilateral triangle they can better tackle “the problem”. When one protests, he's told: “don't go isosceles!”
I was reminded of Alan Arkin and Ed Harris’s dialogue in David Mamet’s real estate masterpiece, Glengarry Glenross: meaningless drivel spouted by scared salesmen in financial jeopardy.
It's 55 minutes of enjoyable satire with the best closing line in a long time:
“But I don't want to be fish faeces!!!...”
Three stars ***